BOOKS

Hannibal, Missouri. Pulsing with history.

And a 150-year-old unsolved disappearance.

Kimberly Wantland and her paranormal investigation team travel to Hannibal, Missouri for their Halloween episode to investigate The Old Catholic Church. Owner Jillian Olson is sure she knows who haunts the building and why he's antagonizing her. But Kimberly hears whispers of far more than the reported ghostly phenomenon. A dark figure implores her to help. But help who?

An empty grave and a disturbing experience inside a cave further confound the case. And as she struggles to piece together the mystery, Kimberly’s psychic abilities fail her.

Her psychic senses out of control, Kimberly sees only two possible causes—Sterling’s presence…or a dangerous force unlike any she’s faced before.

Kimberly fears this investigation may just be all trick and no treat.

A spooky Halloween must-read to add to your treat bucket!

’Tis the season to be haunted.

Christmas in New Orleans—a city brimming with cheery jazz, red and green bulbs lighting the streets, the spicy aroma of gumbo, and the cold chill of spirits asking Santa for the gift of redemption.
After a string of challenging cases, paranormal investigator Kimberly Wantland is looking forward to spending the holidays quietly with her friends in the Big Easy. But ghosts don’t rest at the Cardinal Hotel. Her psychic connection has been damaged, but the moment she enters the hotel, a chill warns her that the historic building breathes with the whispers of ghosts past, present, and maybe even future.
While others sip hot cocoa with their loved ones, Kimberly faces a spirit that threatens those closest to her. A spirit that will stop at nothing to control her abilities.
It’s the most haunting time of the year in this Christmas ghost story. Unwrap it today!

A powerful debut novel by an award-winning author who “offers the reader a glimpse into the lives of women who are largely ignored by society.”

A law student at Dhaka University, Afsana’s future is bright. Her greatest concern is whether or not her parents will approve of her marriage. When they do, the young bride knows she can face anything the future holds. 

Then war breaks out. 

Six years later, she encounters a ghost from her past—her first husband, presumed dead in the fighting. 

My War, My Child vividly and compassionately tells the story of Bengali birangona, the war heroines, whose lives were brutally torn apart by the 1971 War for Independence. Though the fight resulted in the freedom and independent nation so craved by the Bengali people, hundreds of thousands of women’s lives were devastated, leaving them to scrape together the pieces and carry on as best they could—often with children and orphans forced upon them.

This is a piece of history you’ve never heard before, an inside look at the resilience and strength of women around the world.

Told with humor through the unbreakable bonds of friendship and family, What Had Happened Was examines what women will do to “have it all”—and gives them permission to leave room for their own happiness.

Toi Boxx has always had the work hard, play hard mindset. Sure, she likes a good party and nice things, but she jumps out of bed each morning and takes pride in her project management work too. She’s good at it, and that means she’s able to treat her two little boys to pizza at their favorite arcade on the weekends and to save for a nice house with her baby daddy, LaMar. 

LaMar is a great dad and incredible cook with an unmatched sense of humor. But when he loses his job and shows no interest in finding a new one, suddenly it feels like Toi is doing all the work and LaMar is doing all the play.

Luckily, Toi has her momma and two best friends Kēssa and Dena to help, and she can tell them anything. 

See, what had happened was . . .

Thomas Hauser has written books that have become part of the American dialogue. Missing, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, and Final Warning: The Legacy of Chernobyl are testament to that. MY MOTHER and me is a different kind of book.

Eleanor Nordlinger Hauser’s life story is told in MY MOTHER and me as only a gifted writer and loving son could tell it.It's the story of a woman who experienced soaring highs and hard falls, deconstructed and rebuilt her life several times, grew old gracefully, met the struggles of old age without complaint and, ultimately, felt that she had lived long enough and was ready to die.

Hauser’s mother knew that he'd be writing this book. “And I want you to be honest,” she told him. “Don’t make me out to be a saint. You should put in the things I did wrong too.”

“And the affairs were part of our marriage,” she added. “You can write about them too. It wouldn’t be much of a book if you left them out.”

MY MOTHER and me is a portrait of a remarkable woman and a moving exploration of the bond between a mother and son. It’s a special book worthy of attention.

A bittersweet story of friendship and overcoming grief from a critically acclaimed author.

Olivia Montag is a professor who doesn’t have all the answers. The devastating loss of a child ended her marriage, and she’s been overlooked for a job promotion one time too many. Not sure what comes next, she leaves it all behind and volunteers to teach English to schoolchildren in India.

Ten thousand miles away, she connects with fellow volunteers and finds purpose in teaching. Until one by one the girls in her classes stop showing up. Then she meets Mukesh, an Indian man with a heart for invention, who may be the only one who can help her students. This is her chance to impact real change, even if that means trusting new friendships and her own instincts.

It turns out, there might be strength in asking for help, and embracing a painful past may clear the way for a brighter future. Sometimes in the darkest storms, you can choose to dance in the rain.

Eat, Pray, Love meets Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in this poignant but uplifting story of finding your purpose.

Fate had not smiled on her yet.
Could she shoot this man?
She’d never killed anyone before.
Emma Rosales is the heiress to the largest ranch in Texas—The Thorn. All of the responsibilities of managing a million acres now fall into her fifth-generation hands.
A task Emma could handle with her eyes closed . . . if The Thorn was any ordinary property.
The Thorn is home to many things. Clear, cloudless skies. Miles of desert scrub and craggy mountains. A quiet disrupted only by whispers of the wind. And an ancient web of secrets that won’t let Emma out alive without a fight.

The Fifth Daughter of Thorn Ranch is a family saga as large as the state of Texas.

“Lara Bernhardt writes with ferocious honesty and tenderness, laying open the ugly world of the trafficking of young girls with a bright spear of hope.”—Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times best-selling author of The Deep End of the Ocean

★Oklahoma Book Awards Best Fiction Finalist★

How much would you risk to save one child?
Leslie Matthews travels to India with her husband on a business trip, never expecting it will turn her life upside-down. During a trip to the zoo, she meets Raveena, an orphan desperate for someone to save her from a harrowing fate. Leslie tries to rescue Raveena from a sordid, exploitative underworld, but powerful and brutal men hold the girl and don’t intend to let anyone take her. Leslie tumbles into a terrifying underworld of systemic abuse she knows nothing about. But she won't stop until Raveena is safe, regardless of the cost.

In a battle against impossible odds, Leslie wagers everything she has—including her life—to free Raveena.
Shadow of the Taj is a deeply moving, inspirational novel that will stay with you long after you finish reading it. A must read!

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shadow-of-the-taj-lara-bernhardt/1133197306?ean=9781644371718

★Oklahoma Book Awards Best Fiction Finalist★

She sees dead people. He's sure they don't exist.

Psychic Kimberly Wantland investigates paranormal disturbances. Her television show, The Wantland Files, catapulted her from private paranormal investigator to media sensation. She receives thousands of requests for help every day, but the desperate pleas of a distraught mother terrorized by a ghost touch something deep inside her.

Her producer invites Sterling Wakefield, a renowned illusionist and confirmed skeptic, to join the investigation. Despite his mesmerizing eyes and playful smirk, Kimberly instantly dislikes Sterling.

Her investigation leads her to a conclusion she never expected—the mother’s children are in grave danger. Pushing all her powers to the limit, Kimberly must repel the spirit before it possesses the children—even though it means enlisting Sterling’s help and putting her own life at risk.

1965. Sandy runs away from home to escape her mother’s abusive boyfriend. Becca falls in love with the wrong man. And Faith suffers a devastating attack. With no support and no other options, these three young, unwed women meet at a maternity home hospital in New Orleans where they are expected to relinquish their babies and return home as if nothing transpired.

But such a life-altering event can never be forgotten, and no secret remains buried forever. Twenty-five years later, the women are reunited by a blackmailer, who threatens to expose their secrets and destroy the lives they’ve built. That shattering revelation would shake their very foundations—and reverberate all the way to the White House.

Told from the three women’s perspectives, this mesmerizing story is based on actual experiences of women in the 1960s who found themselves pregnant but unmarried, pressured by family and society to make horrific decisions. How that inconceivable act changed women forever is the story of No Names to Be Given, a heartbreaking but uplifting novel of family and redemption.

Newark, 1968. Junior Friscella, Montclair State football star and Italian North Ward hero, has a bright future ahead of him. His family and friends adore him. He doesn’t expect to be blindsided by Mickey Washington, a tough, smart black beauty from the wrong side of town—or to fall completely in love with her.
Mickey Washington, raised by a single mother in the Black Central Ward, works hard to contribute to her family, put herself through college, and make her mother proud. Italian golden boy Junior Friscella is the very last thing she needs. So why can’t she stop thinking about him?

Still recovering from the 1967 riots, Newark seethes with racial tension, corrupt politics, and rival mob families jostling for influence—and is the wrong place and the wrong time for Junior and Mickey. When their relationship becomes public knowledge, neighbors turn on neighbors, family members refuse to accept them, and racially charged violence meets them at every turn. Junior takes a bullet for Mickey, and his family must decide whether to stand up against a city on the brink of riot or push him to break off the relationship.

Junior and Mickey believe their love is more powerful than the hate swirling around them. But can they ever find acceptance and peace in a world that wants to tear them apart?

The ghosts of the past always return to haunt you.

Psychic paranormal investigator Kimberly Wantland has gained celebrity with her hit television show The Wantland Files, resolving hauntings for people with nowhere else to turn. When a desperate family in Guthrie, Oklahoma pleads for help, she can’t say no—even though she and her crew have no idea the secrets they’re about to uncover.

The Johnsons are a gentle, God-fearing family, with deep roots in the history of Guthrie. Their youngest daughter, Faith, has come down sick. And no doctor can cure this mysterious illness.

With a mob of protestors harassing her every move, a poltergeist plaguing the family, and her relationship with Sterling heating up, Kimberly faces her most difficult case yet. But nothing stays buried forever. Kimberly will face down hell itself to defeat the spirit possessing Faith and to put the ghosts of Guthrie to rest.

★KBR 2019 Semi-Finalist Horror/Suspense★

Some spirits won't rest in peace...

Kimberly Wantland never needed anyone, especially not Sterling Wakefield, the arrogant if charming debunker of all things supernatural. Now he's her cohost and she's forced to adapt as The Wantland Files crew investigates The Crescent Hotel, the Most Haunted Hotel in America.
The Crescent always teemed with spirits, but a new presence is terrorizing the guests. He says only one word: Revenge.
Kimberly must determine what the malevolent spirit wants and exorcise it from the hotel. Determined to use her gifts to help those who have nowhere else to turn, Kimberly refuses to give up whatever the cost.

Only one thing is certain--Kimberly is running out of time to purge this nightmarish fury. That is, unless she's ready to join the ghosts of Crescent Hotel.